Police seize over 2 tons of narcotics in southeastern Iran

Iran’s drug combat squads seized more than two tons of illicit drugs in the Southeastern city of Kahnouj in Kerman province in the last Iranian year (ended on March 20), a local police chief announced on Sunday. “A total of 2,263 kilograms of various kinds of narcotics has been discovered and seized in Kahnouj in the last year,” Kahnouj Police Commander Abbas Khakinejad told FNA today. The anti-drug squads of the Iranian Law Enforcement Police have intensified their countrywide campaign against drug-trafficking through staging long-term systematic operations since 2010. Iran's geographical position has made the country a favorite transit corridor for drug traffickers who intend to smuggle their cargoes from Afghanistan to drug dealers in Europe. According to the World Drug Report 2012, the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2010 was ranked first in terms of opium and heroin seizures, accounting for 81% of the world opium seizures and 34% of the world heroin seizures. According to the UNODC, these days, 93 percent of the world's opium is produced in the neighboring Afghanistan, 60 per cent of which is destined for the EU and specially US markets, and the main transit route is Iran, where the country's dedicated police squad risk their lives to make the most discoveries of drug cargoes, disband drug-trafficking gangs and organizations and much more in a bid to rescue not only the Iranian youth but also all those living in Europe and the US. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran has lost nearly 4,000 of its security forces in the war against drug traffickers. Iran has always complained about the EU and other international bodies' lack of serious cooperation with Iran in the campaign against drug trafficking from Afghanistan.